Gold fraud: 2 Nigerians charged

Two Nigerians are before an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly defrauding one Louisa Dewar, a United Kingdom-based businesswoman, to the tune of $116,000.

They are Kazeem Alade, aka Hassan, and Mohammed Gbanjo.

According to the prosecution, about a year ago the two men conspired at the La Palm Hotel in Accra to defraud and defrauded the complainant when they collected the said amount under the pretext of supplying her with two trunks of gold.

The two have also been slapped with an additional offence of forging a certificate from the Ministry of Interior, Benin, and a certificate of deposit of NECODI Group, which they knew not to be genuine.

Appearing before trial judge Ruby N. A. Quayson, the accused persons denied the offence and were accordingly admitted to bail in the sum of GHS 456,000 with two sureties, one to be justified.

Hearing continues on Feb. 7, 2017.

The facts of the case are that about a year ago Dewar met Hassan at a hotel and introduced himself as a businessman from Guinea and told her that he had two trunks of gold at a security house he wanted to sell to her after payment.

Hassan, according to the prosecution, gave some fake documents to the complainant to confirm that he owned the said number of trunks of gold, which he claimed was an inheritance from his family in Guinea, and upon that collected cash amounting to $74,000 from Dewar under the pretext of going to Guinea to bring the mineral.

Gbanjo, using the same trick, also collected $42,000 from Dewar and went into hiding.

Hassan later introduced one Michael Wale, a witness in the case, to Dewar that some of the gold was deposited with him, and he also collected $10,000 from the woman and fled.

Madam Dewar reported the case to the police, leading to the arrest of Wale together with one Femi Aminu. In their caution statements, Wale admitted the offence and refunded $10,000 to the complainant.

Hassan went into hiding and told Dewar that he was in Benin until he was lured to come for more money and was also arrested with Gbanjo.

In his caution statement, Hassan denied the offence, stating that he was not called Hassan but rather Kazeem Alade and that the only money given to him by Dewar was GHS 1,500 as transportation to Benin.